I know that the East Midlands is a fantastically creative place, but with such a vast region to contend with – from the Fens, the Peaks and the Wolds, to Derby, Nottingham, Northampton, Leicester and Lincoln – it can feel difficult to connect with each other and share our experiences – and in the current climate of austerity Britain, I believe that opportunities to collaborate and think fresh are more important than ever.

It’s been a year since the Devoted & Disgruntled Roadshow was last in Lincoln. Since then some things have changed, some problems stay the same and some issues show no sign of being addressed at all because day to day I can feel like I have to run flat out just to stand still. I'm hungry for a chance to get together, pause for more than a second, gather our thoughts and plan ahead.

I’m therefore delighted that Lincoln Performing Arts Centre is to be hosting an East Midlands D&D Roadshow event with Improbable on Tuesday 17 September, in collaboration with Chris Heighton and the team at University of Lincoln. We’d love for you to join us for a day of Open Space.

If you’re not familiar with Open Space, it’s a way of working that harnesses the collective power of the group. It gives everyone the chance to have their say, either by proposing a starting point for discussion, taking part in a range of conversations, or setting the world to rights over a cup of coffee.

We so rarely get a chance to come together and take stock, so I urge you to attend whether you’re a performer, a director, a student, an academic, artist or audience member. Theatre is a collaborative event after all, so everyone is welcome. Nothing is off the agenda. It’s up to us to make theatre better. No one is going to do it for us.

I do hope to see you there

Invitation from Phelim McDermot and Lee Simpson:

In summer 2012 as the UK was flush with the excitement and optimism of the Olympics we toured our first Devoted and Disgruntled Roadshow to 28 venues countrywide. Throughout this time we held space for hundreds of conversations to happen: conversations about what practitioners and audiences felt were important in the Arts. Some were angry, some were practical, many were inspirational. All had a sense of immediacy to them as our agenda in each place was created by the participants who were there and no one else.

These events made it clear that this was just a beginning and that we needed to continue the conversations in order to sustain the positive connections and actions that were coming out of the roadshow.

This summer the optimism doesn’t seem so easy to find. The circus has moved on and the cuts begin to bite deep, particularly outside London. So the chance to raise concerns about culture and the arts and to take positive action is more important than ever.

In September the Roadshow will return and visit 3 locations. One we visited last time around and two will be new for us. In all three we will once again open the space to support the work that you want to do on the things that you are passionate about. Some of those issues will be obvious, some not so obvious. Every issue that is important to someone will get heard. We cannot emphasise strongly enough that Devoted and Disgruntled is a space for you to work on the theatre and performance issues that are important and urgent for you, from the personal to the global and everything in between.

There is another element to Devoted and Disgruntled, that we think might be even more important than the ideas, actions, issues and projects that grow from it. D&D is a place where the people who make up theatre and the performing arts can come together and be a community for a while. That does not mean we all speak with the same voice, just the opposite. It is a chance for us to gather in all our combative and contradictory guises to celebrate our diversity and at the same time to connect to the something bigger that we are all a part of. We are a community, and we stand a much better chance to thrive as individuals if we get the chance to understand and feel that.

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A discussion about how to create a genuinely safe and open atmosphere in improv classes from the first class someone takes.
How do we protect students from potentially harmful experiences which can arise from the rigidity or literal interpretation of 'Yes, and' ?

These are notes taken as Guy Hartnell shared about the Oogly Boogly project, where performers improvised with babies by copying their movements and sounds, while the babies' parents watched. It took place inside a large inflatable venue. The notes were taken by Catherine Ryan.

This was an experimental workshop combining the work of Frank Torino and Richard Coaten who met on the pavement on the way to Day 4. I discovered Frank had an interest in mental health and in improv work with theatre students in Denmark, mine was in how carers of people living with dementia might benefit from having access to improvisation and its role in maintaining their resilience, quality of life and relationship with their loved ones...meta theme - great link made between Franks' You Be Me'

A range of views and experiences: how to sustain work within the current funding structures and views on future problems. And a proposal via Equity for a future new structure based on Provision and Distribution of arts, on providing work to a good level for those trained and aspiring to work in the the arts, and on properly paid work rather than on the restrictive "portfolio" and "excellence".

How can theatres commissioning devised work + work created through experimental processes
better support and facilitate the practical realisation of that work?
A proxy session called by Ellan Parry, hosted at DandD14 by Kath Burlinson

Part of the Fringe Central Programme for Fringe participants. Artist, technician, venue staff or audience member – you’ll know the pains as well as the joys of the Fringe. This is your chance to help make the Fringe work better for the very people who give it reason. You. Bring your own questions and ideas – you set the agenda and nothing is censored. An open space – come for as much or as little as you want.

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